Modern electronic devices are implemented utilizing a plurality of integrated circuit (IC) chips. The IC chips are fabricated on a monolithic semiconductor substrate of a wafer. Referring now to FIG. 1, an exemplary semiconductor wafer according to the conventional art is illustrated. The wafer 100 includes a plurality of a given integrated circuits fabricated in an array of dice 110 separated by scribe boundaries 120-150. For example, tens, hundreds or thousands of copies of the same IC chip may be fabricated on a wafer. A chip including a large integrated circuit may include millions or more semiconductor devices, such as transistors.
The semiconductor devices of the integrated circuit are generally fabricated by performing various doping, depositing, patterning and etching processes upon the wafer. The semiconductor devices are then interconnected by a plurality of conductive layers. Referring now to FIG. 2, an exemplary cross sectional view of the plurality of conductive layers in an IC chip according to the conventional art is shown. The conductive layers are typically polysilicon, metal and/or the like. The conductive layers include a plurality of horizontal layers referred to herein as interconnect layers 210 and a plurality of vertical layers referred to herein as via layers 220. The different conductive layers are separated by various passivation layers 230. The conductive layers and passivation layers are also fabricated by various doping, depositing, patterning and etching processes performed on the wafer. A corresponding set of a given via layer 220, a given interconnect layer 210 and a given passivation layer 230 is typically referred to in the art as a metallization layer. A chip including a large integrated circuit may include four or more metallization layers to interconnect the semiconductor devices within the IC chip and provide external connections for control signals, data signals, address signals, supply potentials, and the like.
Referring now to FIG. 3, an exemplary integrated circuit chip fabricated according to the conventional art is shown. The integrated circuit 300 may be laid out on the chip in a plurality of functional blocks 305-370. In various integrated circuits, such a central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing unit (GPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), microcontrollers and the like, the chip 300 includes one or more core circuits 305, 310, one or more peripheral circuits 315-350, and/or the like. For example, a graphics processing unit may include a plurality of cores 305, 310, a plurality of memory bus interface circuits 315-330, a plurality of communication bus interface circuits 335, 340, a plurality of display interface circuits 345, 350, and/or the like. In addition, one or more functional blocks 305, 310 may include one or more sub-blocks 355-370. For example, the core circuits 305, 310 of a graphics processing unit may include sub-blocks 355, 360 for communicating between core circuits 305, 310, system sub-blocks 365, 370 for controlling operation within the respective core circuits 305, 310 and communication between core circuits 305, 10, and/or the like. The modular circuit architecture is utilized to simplify the design of the integrated circuit, improve the manufacturability of the integrated circuit and/or improve the performance of the integrated circuit. However, there is a continuing need for improved design, layout and manufacturing techniques.